Parallels moves Windows programs to Mac

A reader told us he’s getting a Mac but wishes he could keep the Windows version of Quicken because the Mac version is, as he put it, “a real dog.” (He’s a man of few words.)

Making the Mac work the way you want makes sense to us; we would also like to use some of our favorite Windows programs. So we decided to try Parallels, an $80 program from Parallels.com.

We used Parallels to install Windows and were soon up and running on the Macbook Air. We installed our printer and followed with MS Word, Printmaster and other Windows programs. All worked fine and — especially nice — you can copy and paste items between the Mac and Windows environments.

One problem that shouldn’t exist but does is the Windows programs you’d like to run on the MacBook Air usually are on CDs or DVDs. Tough luck buddy, because the Air doesn’t have a disk drive. To get over this hump, you can use a separate free program to move the contents of the CD/DVD disks to a flash drive, thumb drive, whatever you call it, which can then be plugged into the Mac’s USB port. Got it? Good.

To do this, we used Ashampoo’s Burning Studio 6, which is a free program from Ashampoo.com. This transfers whatever is on the CD or DVD disk to whatever medium you happen to want as the destination, which in this case was a large capacity flash drive. By the way, these things are cheap, cheap, cheap. We bought a 16-gigabyte flash drive, made by Sandisk, the inventor of the flash drive, for $15 at Radio Shack.

The transfer worked beautifully. The Burning Studio program even converts Blu-ray discs and movie DVDs to run from a flash drive. This would be handy if you want to watch movies on a train or plane.

Some Mac users will rush to point out that the Mac comes with Boot Camp, a free program for running Windows in dual mode. It also requires that you have or buy a copy of Windows; the instructions were so complicated we gave up.

FlightCar.com is where to go for a new and different business we never would have thought of. They rent cars that people leave in airport parking lots. So far they’re just doing San Francisco Airport, but more to come. The owner of the car gets free parking and a tank of gas for being part of the action. We’re going to San Francisco in a couple months, so we’ll try it out. Prices are cheap.

•We’re still waiting for the official Microsoft version of Office for iPad and Android tablets. Meanwhile, there’s a free app that lets you use Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It’s called OnLiveDesktop from desktop.online.com.

You don’t actually install Microsoft Office on your tablet but use versions that are stored online. The files you create in OnLiveDesktop live online in your private account. You get two gigabytes of storage in the free version or can pay $5 a month for more. To get documents out of your tablet onto a flash drive or into a printer, log on to the website from a PC or Mac.

•Another road to business meeting paradise is Haiku Deck, a free PowerPoint-type app for iPhone or iPad. Haiku Deck practically creates presentations for you. It gives you a few to start with and modify, with great-looking themes. The search function searches more than a million free-to-use images from the Creative Commons. When you’re finished, you get a link to the presentation to share on the Web. Everyone at the meeting cheers wildly.

One reason so many people like a laptop is its portability. But desktops don’t have to be the big boxes called towers.

Velocity Micro makes the Edge Mini, a desktop PC that’s only 4 inches by 4 inches, and 1.5 inches thick. It’s a small brick you can connect wirelessly to a monitor and keyboard. (This reminds us of a similar computer that came out 30 years ago and was called simply The Brick.)

The Edge Mini has a fast Intel processor and connects to SATA drives, which are much faster, heat up less and are more flexible than parallel or PATA drives. Other advantages: The Edge Mini can be connected to a large HD display. Perhaps best of all, you can get your choice of Windows 7 or 8. Prices start at $599.

We can’t think of any reason to recommend the new Jitterbug Plus smartphone. If you want an easy-to-use senior phone, get the old one with the big buttons. It had its design hat on straight.

The new Jitterbug Plus is a smartphone, much like all the other smartphones on the market but not as good. It’s a $149 Android phone, with a slide-out keyboard, which is OK, but the text on Web pages is so tiny Bob couldn’t make it out and Joy had to squint. You can’t expand it by spreading your fingers, as you can on an iPhone or Android phone.

We understand where the Jitterbug marketing people are coming from and we probably could recite the dialogues that must have taken place: “You know, Figby, we have to be in this new market, etc.” Most visitors to a phone website will be interested in smartphones. But it makes more sense to buy a good one and download the Jitterbug apps.

Jitterbug is known for its Live Nurse app, “check-in” calls, medication reminders, and “5 Star Urgent Response” for emergency situations. It saved us a lot of trouble one time when we were lost driving in a heavy rain in San Diego. (Who knew it rains in San Diego?)